The curse of forgetting

Hanuman was a monkey, and like all monkeys, he could never be quite still. He swung from branches, jumped over rocks and swam through streams . Every time he saw a Brahmin praying, he found ways to distract him. If the Brahmin was offering water, Hanuman would drink it, if the Brahmin was praying by a fire, Hanuman would douse it, if a Brahmin had a beard long enough, Hanuman would pull it.

Finally the Brahmins had had quite enough, so they got together in a secret hiding place where they lit a fire and prepared a curse: that Hanuman would forget the truth about himself and his powers until he was reminded of them at the time when he needed them most.

Panchamukhi Hanuman pataka, gouache on cotton. Jodhpur. 19th century and Hanuman in the 20th century, taken from a temple wall in Madhya Pradesh.

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The birth of Rama, Lakshmana, Shatrughna and Bharata

In a kingdom quite far away and in a time quite unlike our own, there lived a mighty king, so mighty that he was called Dasharatha — kind of the ten chariots. While Dasharatha had everything and his people loved him, he did not have an heir. So, as all wise men do, Dasharatha performed many sacrifices to appease the gods. During one such sacrifice, as the ghee was poured into the fire and the flames rose higher and higher, almost as high as you can see, a magnificent figure rose up from flames, shining like the noon-day sun, brilliant as a constellation of stars, holding a golden bowl. In a voice as deep as the deepest ocean, he said: “Take this bowl, mighty Dasharatha and let your wives eat the payasa from it. They will be blessed with sons.” Unable to contain his joy, Dasharatha accepted the bowl and distributed the gift between his wives. Some months later, the city of Ayodhya was decorated with the brightest flags and banners and poets and musicians and farmers and cobblers celebrated the birth of their new princes, Rama, Lakshmana, Shatrughna and Bharata.

This image is taken from the Bala Kanda of a manuscript produced in Udaipur, India in 1712.

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The birth of Sita

In the great kingdom of Lanka, there lived a mighty and cruel king. King Ravana ruled over Lanka with an iron fist and ten heads, levying heavy taxes on his people. One day, sages happened to pass through the great kingdom and because they had no money to pay the traveller’s tax, Ravana took their blood instead and stored it away in a pot that he placed deep inside his palace.

Once, Mandodari, the queen of Lanka, was displeased with her husband and decided to kill herself by drinking a pot of blood which she found in hidden in her chambers. As we all know, the blood of sages can produce miracles, so no sooner had Mandodari drunk from the pot than she gave birth to a daughter. Afraid of her husband’s anger, and rightly so, she put the little girl into a casket and had the casket buried in the far away kingdom of Mithila.

King Janaka unearthed the casket when he was plouhing his fields one day. He picked up the little girl and named her Sita because she had been found in a furrow.

Sita’s story

During their days in the forest Sita told Rama a story she had heard. “Many years ago,” she said “an ascetic lived in a forest among birds and animals, perfectly content. This did not please Indra, who wanted to place obstacles in the ascetic’s path and interrupt his practice of austerities. So, Indra appeared in the form of a soldier and gave him his sword for safe-keeping. The ascetic guarded the sword with his life, he even went out into the forest carrying it with him at all times. As time passed, his clear, calm mind became clouded with cruelty. Eventually, the ascetic died and went to hell, only because of the weapon.”

Indra on his elephant (right) was painted in South India (probably Thanjavur or perhaps Tiruchchirapalli) and bears a water-mark on European paper with ‘W Thomas’, circa 1820.

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Ahana Lakshmi talks about her grandfather, K R Srinivasa Iyengar’s wonderful book Sitayana… Sitayah Charitham Mahat. The Glorious Tale of Sita. The story of Sita and Rama has been told and retold many times by many people in many forms since it was created. Over the centuries, creative writers have struggled to project Sita in all her purity and nobility and maternal love. The more they write, the more there is to be said. She is one of us, contemporaneous because her story is our story too. The outline of the story is simple. Sita, a babe discovered by a childless king while wielding a plough as part of a ritual, was eventually married to the god-like prince Rama. The prince was exiled and she followed him into the forest where she was kidnapped by a rakshasa and taken away to his country. She was imprisoned there and finally set free by her husband and his army, but had to undergo an ordeal through fire before she was accepted by her husband. They returned victorious to their country and were crowned king and queen. That, unfortunately, was not the end of the story. Pregnant now, she was exiled by her husband, the king, on the strength of mere rumours, thus facing a second terrible rejection, and finally withdrew to Mother Earth from whence she had emerged. While there are points of jubilation, the sojourn as a captive and her days at … Continue reading →

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